FPC & Civility
5th April 2006
Portcullis House, Committee Room N
The seminar examined recent political developments in the GCC countries as well as internal and external factors that have prompted a vibrant debate on reform within the region. In looking at the GCC countries, the seminar drew attention to the nuances and dynamics of individual country experiences and was also mindful of how economic factors can weaken the impulse for political reform.
Rouzbeh Pirouz, Chairman of the Civility Programme, chaired the event.
Among those speaking at the event were Neil Partrick of London's Economist Intelligence Unit; and Dr. Emma Murphy of Durham University's School of Government and International Affairs.
Neil Partrick
Neil Partrick is a senior analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit in London, where he has worked since 2002. Prior to working at the EIU, he was Head of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) for four years (1998-2002). In his capacity as an EIU analyst, Neil Partrick edits and contributes to the EIU's Country and Country Risk Service reports on Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. Neil Partrick has given presentations on Middle Eastern security, political and economic issues at a number of venues, including the Institute for Political and International Studies in Tehran, the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research in Abu Dhabi, and the Middle East Association in London. He is currently completing part-time doctoral research on Kuwait's Foreign Policy at the London School of Economics.
Dr. Emma Murphy
Emma Murphy is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Government and International Affairs in Durham University, where she teaches politics and political economy of the Middle East. Her forthcoming works are on the "The Tunisian Mise a Niveau Programme and the Political Economy of Reform" (New Political Economy, December 2006) and "Agency and Space: Information technology and Political Reform in the Gulf Arab States" (Third World Quarterly). She also has interests in postgraduate education in the UK, is a member of the executive committee of the UK Council for Graduate Education and was Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences in Durham from 2002-2005.
Download the seminar report here (50 kilobyte PDF)